North Korea Assails Exercises
MyWay is reporting that North Korea has denounced the exercises to be conducted this weekend in the Sea of Japan.
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) – North Korea warned the United States and South Korea on Thursday to call off military exercises scheduled for this weekend and to back off any new sanctions against the communist country or risk placing the entire region in danger.
The warning issued on the sidelines of a meeting of Southeast Asian nations in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, came as tensions on the peninsula simmer over the sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors. The North was blamed for the attack, but has denied any responsibility.
“Amid growing concerns by the international community, South Korea and the United States have announced they would hold joint naval exercises,” said Ri Tong Il, a North Korean spokesman, according to Yonhap news agency. “Such a move presents a grave threat to the peace and security not only to the Korean peninsula, but to the region.”
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Analysis. This would be the mouse that roared save the artillery on the DMZ. OK Kim, put up or shut up. Do something that indicates that you are really upset. Partial mobilization? DMZ incident? Oh, did that in 1976. Try and sink another South Korean warship? I suspect they are better prepared for that trick. Land some saboteurs? Something new and different? Or just sit there and fume with a snifter of Courvosier?
The grave threat to peace in northeast Asia is North Korea. A family country run by a bunch of sycophants and the inmates run the asylum. They may be nuts but they are not stupid. Kim and Co. realize that there are certain things they can only do once when they are being squeezed. Most of them they can only do once and then the house burns down. The other thing they have to worry about is the reaction of President Hu to some of the options. One tends to believe, based upon all of the entreaties to maintain calm on the Korean Peninsula that the PRC would not be happy if war were to resume in Korea.
The PRC is more likely to start pressing us to back off on the exercises. Don’t believe that will happen. The hairs on the back of my head are telling me that we are pressing Kim into an untenable position. He either breaks or goes to war. We are still respecting the wishes of the PRC and not taking the GW into the Yellow Sea … yet. Given the PRC’s epileptic fit when we said the GW was coming to a Yellow Sea near them, if we do that it is the gauntlet thrown down.
